Stay
by xshrimpyx
Summary: Hermione needs something Draco can't give. Will she stay? Oneshot.


So, this story kind of ran away with me. It started off and something and ended up as something completely different. Sorry for the lack of description, I was getting really into the dialogue. Hope you like it x

"You stupid little Mud-" He stopped, face flushed angrily. Ashamed.

"Go on say it, I know you want to." She taunted, daring him to say it, to say the word that would break everything, including her heart.

Silence.

She turned away, tears making slow tracks down her reddened cheeks and he reached out to her, but dropped his hands when she flinched away from him.

"Please Granger, please don't leave me." His voice broke, she heard the desperation. "Please, just don't."

"Give me a reason? And because I'm Draco Malfoy doesn't count." Brown met grey; her heart lurched. "If you can give me a reason why I shouldn't walk out this door now, I'll stay."

"Because I love you."

"It's not enough Draco,"

"What more is there?" He frantically moved in front of her blocking the door with his body. Hermione sighed achingly, her heart clenching desperately, painfully.

"You know what else there is," Hermione whispered sadly, raising her tearful eyes to his equally wet orbs. He grasped her hand and held it to his heart, where she could hear the erratic beating of the vital organ.

"I can't," He sobbed, tears finally running tracks down his face as he realised the emotion pent up inside him. "You know I can't marry you. The heir...I can't..." His grip on her hand was now painfully as he clenched his fist around her fingers, worried that if he let go she'd slip away. But she was slipping away anyway.

"Then what else is there to say, Draco?" Hermione extracted her hand forcefully, feeling both of their hearts break as she did so.

"Please, please stay," Draco begged quickly, shoulders slumped in desolation, his grief stricken orbs searing her very soul.

"I'm sorry, Draco." He fell to his knees before her and lowered his face into his palms. No sound was emitted from his lips which were tightly pressed together but Hermione viewed his heaving shoulders with agony. But she couldn't stay.

"I'm sorry." She whispered before moving around Draco, out the door, and out of his life.

Draco wandered into his hallway and picked up his stack of mail, flicking through the envelopes quickly in a bid to find the most important mail. His gaze landed on a spotless cream envelope with curvy penmanship that was as familiar to him as his own. He ripped the envelope open with shaking hands and his eyes scanned the sheet quickly.

He dropped it and slip down the wall, lungs heaving as he struggled to draw in breath.

She was getting married.

To Weasley.

In the end, Draco had lost everything anyway.

Hermione fluttered nervously and kept touching her eyes, despite Molly and Ginny's loud admonishes. She just couldn't sit still. Everyone said it was natural that she should feel nervous, but they didn't know that her thoughts still lingered on a certain blond haired Slytherin. They didn't know he still penetrated her dreams nearly every night; his smirk curving his lips upwards, the warmth in his eyes when he gazed on her in the morning, but most of all his crumpled body as he sobbed when she'd left him. They didn't know that she still loved him...more than Ron.

"Hermione?" Harry appeared, grinning happily, knowing his two best friends were marrying each other. "Ready to go?" Harry looped her hand through his arm and walked her forwards despite no words coming out of Hermione's mouth. Hermione squared her shoulders, it was time to move on.

It was over.

She'd done it. She'd married Ron, her now-husband who was staring adoringly at her from across the room. Yet she could not return his loving glances as she was too busy desperately searching the crowds for the only face she really wanted to see. Not wanted, needed to see.

She'd almost given up when she saw a flash of silver in a darkened corner on the edge of the dance floor, followed by a half of a pale face she instantly recognised. Her knees went weak and her chest constricted, she gripped tightly onto the back of a chair, her knuckles turning white.

Brown met grey; her heart lurched.

One glance and she knew he was as unhappy as she was. One glance and she knew he'd never stopped loving her nor stopped thinking about her. One glance and she knew his heart was still as broken as it had been 7 years ago. One glance and she knew she'd been wrong not to stay.


End file.
